1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a container holder for holding a container.
2. Related Art
There are beverage containers of various shapes, such as a tall container and a short container. Examples of the tall container include a plastic-bottle type container, a large-diameter paper cup, and the like. Examples of the short container include a can-type container and a small paper cup. As needed, a tall container will be called a large container, and a short container will be called a small container, hereinafter.
A commonly-used container holder has a case part with a receiving space. The receiving space is normally defined by a side wall and a bottom wall of the case part, and is capable of receiving a container. A bottom surface of the container received in the receiving space can be supported by the bottom wall of the case part. A side surface of the container can be supported by the side wall of the case part.
When a large container is placed in a shallow receiving space adapted to receive a small container, only a lower part of the large container is received in the receiving space, and an upper part thereof is largely exposed upward to the outside of the container holder. For this reason, in such a case, the large container is disadvantageously difficult to be stably supported by the container holder. On the other hand, when a small container is placed in a deep receiving space adapted to receive a large container, the small container is fitted in a lower part (i.e., deep side) of the receiving space and is disadvantageously difficult to be removed from the receiving space.
With respect to this problem, in recent years, there has been proposed a technique that changes a bottom wall supporting the bottom surface of a container in depth to make the substantial depth of the receiving space variable. For example, JP 2007-196884 A describes a container holding device (container holder) including a fixed peripheral wall part and a movable bottom wall part which format least part of a container receiving space, and a position adjusting mechanism which holds the movable bottom wall part in a horizontal attitude and can adjust a vertical position of the movable bottom wall part.
However, the container holder (container holding device) described in JP 2007-196884 A disadvantageously requires a space in a direction of depth. More specifically, in order to form a receiving space adaptable to a large container, a length from an opening to a bottom wall in a receiving space of a case part is required to be large, and the case part is required to have a large size. However, in a recent vehicle, the designability of the exterior and interior of the vehicle is required to be improved, and a container holder in the interior is required to have a small required space. In particular, the length of the container holder in the direction of depth is required to be short.
In a conventional container holder (container holding device), the opening of the receiving space is exposed. This arrangement disadvantageously spoils the designability.